Simon Brooke said:in message <[email hidden]>, archierob
(') said:It is a passion - perhaps the one enduring passion of my life, I love
my bike, I love cycling - but should I love it? It has become a game
of cheats and chemists - my chemist is more gifted than yours, the
latest revelations in a tour that was supposed to restore all our
faith in its honesty is increasingly seemingly more fraudulent by the
day. Should I give up? Can this sport ever be honest, indeed can any
'sport'?
OK, this is a question on many levels.
Firstly Vino. Vino is a flawed hero. But, watching him tearing apart the
team he was supposed to be riding for in 2005, we knew he was flawed.
Brilliant, mercurial, egocentric, courageous, manic, charismatic, foolish.
A man driven by complex drives; a big man in a sense which has nothing to
do with physical size. I wrote two days ago that I wouldn't be surprised
if Vino was doping, I wouldn't even be surprised if he'd been doping this
week, and I wouldn't think less of him if I learned he had. Well, he has,
and I don't. The fact that it was homologous not autologous suggests that
it wasn't planned for in advance - it was a spur of the moment thing, an
act of desperation. And that's very human, something I can relate to.
There is tragedy here, in a classical Greek sense: the flawed hero finally
destroyed by his flaws. But still a hero. We will be poorer - cycling will
be poorer - without him.
Secondly, cheating. Once upon a time in a universe far away, there was a
little cycling club with a group of good under-16 riders. One of them had
a very ambitious father. When the club ran time trials, the father
would 'train' on the same circuit as the time trial, and when he did this
the son would always record the best time. Then, one week, a neighbouring
club ran their time trial on the same course, and both father and son
raced. The son's time was four minutes slower than he'd been recording
when his father was 'training'.
Cheating happens at all levels and doesn't have to involve hypodermic
needles. Myself, I'm never going to win a race and I know I'm never going
to win a race; and I don't validate myself with the idea that I might win
a race. So I don't need to cheat. Does cheating (in races in which I race)
spoil it for me? No. I ride for the pleasure of riding, and for the
camaraderie. For those of us who never had the genetic endowments to make
us potential winners, cheating isn't a temptation, and racing can be
enjoyed simply for itself.
In the hypothetical little fairy story I told above, the other kids knew
the son was cheating, and I think it did spoil their enjoyment a bit -
because they could have won if he hadn't. But the child I felt sorry for
was the son himself.
Third, spectacle. The big professional races need to be understood as
spectacle, as morality play, as tournament. Rasmussen, the strange, the
driven - not as arrogant as Armstrong, not as attractive as Landis, but
ultimately as flawed as either. Sastre, the willing lieutenant left
exposed in the spotlight by the loss of his leader and lacking the last
ounce of drive to take his place. Ullrich, supremely gifted, riding
through his career in the shadow of someone more gifted (or better doped).
Basso (and Millar), the golden boys blessed by all the gods, who fell
because they lacked confidence in their own abilities. Yes, cheating
happens. But it is part of the drama.
Winning the Tour de France is a very big ambition. All across the world,
children are lying in bed dreaming that one day it could be them. This is
the great test in cycling, in the same way that single handed non-stop
circumnavigation is the great test in sailing. People are drawn to great
tests, and only the most gifted and the most driven will ever achieve
them. For the nearly men, the temptation to cheat must be overwhelming.
I have no simple solution to this. Ride because you enjoy it. Watch the
great riders because, doped or undoped, cheating or not, what they are
doing is epic, is magnificent, is extraordinary. But under that they're
still human, and humans have flaws, even heros.
Halfway through writing this, an old cycling friend phoned up to talk about
the news. And in talking about it with him, I realise that one thing would
still hurt me. I would really be hurt if we learned that Tom Boonen had
doped. And I'm not even a Boonen fan.
Thanks, Simon. Well said (even if unusually eloquent for RBR)
Mark J.
